


Keep Your Friends Close

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Comrades, Comrades in Arms, Consensual, Consent, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Dirty Thoughts, Dominance, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Consent, Face Punching, Fellatio, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Imagination, Kissing, M/M, Male Friendship, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Rough Kissing, Rough Oral Sex, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-18 09:57:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: With Constance and Milady gone from their lives but not forgotten, a simmering tension is building between d’Artagnan and Athos. Set pretty much exclusively within and around the first episode of the second series (Keep Your Friends Close).





	1. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An odd errand leads to some close encounters

The day had started simply enough - a routine, if mysterious, errand into hill country with his brother Musketeers - and had swiftly transmuted, via a scurrilous wretch and an over-enthusiastic villager, into a punch-up, a death, and a chase, and now this: warring sensations coursing through his body. Confusion and desire and discomfort and anticipation and.

Bloody Rochefort.

“He’ll come this way.”

The horses picked their way through the undergrowth. No-one said anything, because Porthos was right. You don’t say “Are you sure?” unless it’s life-or-death stuff with a much larger margin for error than this.

As the horse moved sideways briefly, he involuntarily tightened his grip, and pressed his lips together harder as the conflicting sensations gripped him more urgently in their turn for a moment.

“Everything all right?” asked d’Artagnan, lightly.

“Sorry,” he murmured, relieved to hear his voice coming steadily enough, “thought I was slipping for a moment.”

“Nearly there,” returned his companion, cheerfully.

He bit back another groan, cleared his throat, immediately cursed himself for doing so, consciously loosened his grip a notch.

“And now,” said Aramis, “the waiting.” Athos, leaning slightly, could see the back of his hat brim dip as he raised his sunny face to the woodland canopy.

Athos cautiously adjusted his position behind d’Artagnan, pulling back slightly to a less comfortable, more discreet position, his arm still loosely around his waist for safety.

Safety.

For the last hour his crotch had been pressed against the younger man’s backside and he was in agony.

Bloody Rochefort.

And, while he was at it, bloody Constance bloody Bonacieux.

As they all settled into waiting, he let his mind drift back three days ago to when he’d heard, faint but distinct, the sound of d’Artagnan, clearly in a stew of frustration over the loss of his all-too-proper woman, relieving himself of his pent-up desires. The back of his gloved hand frozen against the door, Athos had not knocked, but rather lingered, leaning, head cocked, horribly aware of his own stillness, the harshness of his breath in his throat, the dizzying thump of blood through his body. Another moan, muffled this time, a scuffle of cloth, the vivid, vivid image in his mind of d’Artagnan’s long, brown body arching up, clenched and trembling, thrusting into his fist while the rounded flesh under his other thumb was rammed into his mouth, biting down against sound, against betrayal.

Stifling his own groans, he’d strode away, errand forgotten, to spend his sweat and cries in the practice yard.

The next few days had been a torment of images washing over him at moments alone, or when on guard - his idle brain goading him first with renewed, more detailed images of d’Artagnan’s body grinding against itself and the worn-out bed, then, that baseline established, the viewpoint changing, his own hands on d’Artagnan’s sweat-lashed chest, the heat of him against his palms, his own thighs between those writhing limbs, the thump and friction and quickening of them, twinned breaths, a pulsing, wrestling mess of grip and groan and heat and.

The mission into the countryside had come as a blessing, the hill breeze cooling his head, feeling familiar riding muscles gather him forward, feeling his lungs pull open. Though Paris and the life he’d made there, among his brothers, was his home now, his body clearly missed green vistas, proper hills, trees, fresh air. A peace had come over him for a blessed while.

And now this.

Bloody, _bloody_ Rochefort.

And finally. The sound of a slow trot reined in. The sliding dismount. The muffled clop and scuff of a walking horse and the man leading it coming up to the curve. The pause. The suspicious turn back.

D’Artagnan’s body tensing, drawing and cocking his weapon in one smooth movement from the trees’ margin. He drew in breath as Rochefort turned, and Porthos nudged his horse to move out onto the path, pistol drawn, Aramis following after.

Rochefort dropped the reins, raised his hands, stepped away from Athos’s horse. Athos, seized by an abruptly uncomplicated exultation, slid down from behind d’Artagnan, strode unhurriedly toward the Comte, paused, regarding him for a moment, and unceremoniously roundhouse punched him to the ground, expending a lot more than revenge for horse theft in that single blow.

Rochefort examined his mouth with his fingers, looked up up, arrogance in no way abated, and asked: “What was that for?”

“To see how it would feel,” replied Athos.

He turned to the others. “Felt good,” he said, with a rare smile. The others grinned back, Porthos breaking into a chuckle.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad day after all.


	2. Building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some plot (not mine) and angst.

“What do you think?”

Athos felt his face crease as he considered, wanting to give the young man an honest and useful response.

“I think,” he said, slowly, “that it’s a very generous notion and a terrible idea.”

D’Artagnan leaned back, enthusiasm dimming a little. Athos could see a flush beginning to creep up his chest through the gap in his leather shirt. He flicked his eyes immediately to d’Artagnan’s, his gaze dropping inexorably to his mouth as his friend said “Why?”

Athos blinked rapidly, scrubbing away thoughts of that firm, soft mouth, but knew his face was otherwise the studied blank it always was. He sighed, drew breath again, and said: “Because it is a generous notion to elevate Madame Bonacieux’s station, and the Queen will welcome a clever, loyal, discreet, resourceful woman like that by her side.” He paused. D’Artagnan leaned forward a little again. Athos swallowed and continued: “And because you may be needlessly torturing yourself, bringing a beautiful woman you clearly still have feelings for away from her husband and much closer to your daily life.”

D’Artagnan’s brow creased and his head and shoulders slumped forward. Athos reflected that the new Musketeer’s intentions would have been entirely innocent, and born from a desire to please the two women, a move that, to him, would have seemed supremely logical.

He shook his head slightly and let a small smile lift one corner of his mouth. “If you and she can bear it, let’s do our utmost to bring your desire to life.”

The young man lifted such a limpid, hopeful gaze to his that Athos felt his mouth dry and his palms tingle in an instant, his heart give two swift kicks to his chest. His eyes froze on d’Artagnan’s for a hot and terrible, endless moment, until he tore his face away, signalling for more wine he’d lost all taste for this past week, steeling the tremors in his arms and gut.

_ Can  _ you  _ bear it? _ asked the voice that had sprung up in him this past few days as his taste for wine had died.  _ If I have to _ , he answered it, roughly.

Later that afternoon, Athos watched Rochefort kneel, still mired with travel, his tumbled hair a shock against the ragged brown of his prison clothing, enjoying the man’s obvious discomfort, his brother Musketeers ranging in a close arc, ready for treachery. His head whipped to the courtroom door as it was pushed open and a crowlike figure bustled in past the guards.

“Let me through.” He could have been an assassin with three bombs and a musket, and those idiots would have just let him wander through on his own say-so. “I  _ insist  _ on an audience with the King.”

“His Excellency Don Fernando Perales, Ambassador of Spain!” bassooned the appropriate courtier.

“So I see,” muttered the King. In the rapidly-heating exchange that followed he hopped down from the dais, perilously close to the ambassador. Athos felt the musketeers tense as one. And suddenly Rochefort had punched the man to the ground, Aramis as quickly between them, arm outstretched, with Treville helping Don Fernando up.

The King landed a further insult and the enraged Spaniard swept from the room, the Musketeers in tight formation turning to see him go. Athos felt the heat of d’Artagnan’s shoulder against his chest, except, he couldn’t, there was clear air between them,  _ he’s a friend, a brother Musketeer. Don’t be an idiot. _

Rochefort insisted on privacy with the King, and the court departed at a gesture. The Queen swept from the room and Aramis’s eyes followed her. As they always did. No matter what else demanded his attention, the Queen pulled him, a kite leaning into the wind. Athos felt his own eyes shutter and roll slightly.  _ You see? Ridiculous. _

_ I know. _

Later, as they rounded the corner, they came across the aftermath of the Queen’s audience with the Bonacieuxes, Constance glowing still, both of them cooling at the sight of the soldiers.

“Monsieur Bonacieux, how are things in the drapery business?” said Athos smoothly, sweeping the man to the staircase.

“Should I be buying wool or silk this season?” rumbled Porthos, equally grave and affable as they herded him down the stairs.

“It’s so… unseasonably cold,” said Aramis, earnestly. Athos, setting the pace, gave a swift look back to see them both with companionable arms around the draper, who was beginning to extol, automatically, the virtues of wool.

After seeing that particular peril off, he realised that he’d lost Aramis. Turning back, he found him waving prettily to the Dauphin’s governess. He walked up and simply gazed at him.

“What?” big brown eyes innocent.

Athos felt his own roll again, echoed “What.”

“Athos,” he whispered, leaning close, “sometimes I think I’m doomed… always to…” a shuddering breath “want the things I cannot have…”

Athos steered him away towards less tempting duties, delivering a stern warning while his inner voice snickered at him.  _ Hypocrite. _

_ I know _ .


	3. Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Campfire talk (and yes, more angst and teasing...)

The wood pops in the heat, sending sparks arcing towards the dance of its own light among the trees. Athos is debating whether to post watch, finds his thoughts sliding sourly towards Rochefort who, he knows, whatever he suggests, will say the opposite, from sheer bloodymindedness.

He says nothing, just lets his head, resting on one comfortably hitched shoulder as he reclines on his camp roll, loll back a little, feels the day recede. They are talking desultorily, the casual back-and-forth of men who’ve known each other a long time and, moreover, trust each other to the hilt.

“No,” Aramis is saying, the vowel blending into a gaping yawn. He swallows. “No, I’m serious. Can’t you see me as a musician? Plying my way around the country, singing mournful ballads and happy, er, other ballads, whatyoucallit, lute, over my shoulder instead of a musket, a new town every day… well, every week…? The open road,” he gestures grandly, “my constant companion. Always, the call of the road.”

“Honestly?” says Porthos. “No.”

The others snigger gently.

“Why?” asks Aramis, a picture of wounded innocence and shattered dreams.

“You want this again? All right. One,” the large Musketeer holds up a finger, “you hate travelling. Two,” another finger, “you don’t own a lute, and barely know what one is. Three,” he points the fingers across the fire towards his friend and sights down them, “you can’t sing.”

“I can!”

“No,” he says, inexorably, “you can’t.”

“I have a fine voice.”

“Oh, aye, you just have a terrible memory for tunes and words.”

“I will grant you that,” says Aramis, “but wouldn’t it be an excellent way to carry out secret missions? Musicians are welcome everywhere.”

“Someone would ask you to play and you’d be scuppered.”

“Porthos,” he says, in heart-breaking tones, “you’re trampling on my dreams!”

They all snigger, except for the pocket of sulky silence that is Rochefort.

“Think of all the women you could woo,” comes d’Artagnan’s light voice, “if you could serenade them.” His hands are busy - he has been systematically cleaning and checking everything - sharpening both rapier and dagger, and oiling everything with a gentle but persistent thoroughness.

Athos closes his eyes for a moment.

“Like lover-boy here needs any extra help!”

“You should never turn down an opportunity for an advantage,” rejoins Aramis, mock-sententious. “Hmm.” Athos opens his eyes to see the other man mock-contemplative, hand to his chin. “I could always write poetry.”

The others cry out along the lines of “No!” and “Spare us!” and “Help!” Rochefort grumbles into his blanket and ostentatiously wraps himself up, turning away from the fire.

“Didn’t that Alice like poetry?”

“Hah!” Aramis’s eyes grow distant. Then: “Sweet Alice.”

“Who was Alice?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Pâtissière,” explains Athos.

“Always smelled like marzipan,” hums Aramis.

“Enormous,” gestures Porthos, “talents…” and winks.

“Sweet, sweet Alice.”

“Right!” says Porthos. “I’m going to take care of some business.”

The others make token protest as he groans himself upward and starts to make his way from the campfire.

“If you mean you need to go take a piss,” comes the unwelcome, acid tones of Rochefort, “why don’t you say so. Or, better yet,” he adds, turning back over, “don’t say anything at all. You’re all barbarians, you Musketeers.”

“And if I meant I was going for a piss,” returns Porthos, half-twisted back towards the light, “that’s what I’d say.”

“Then…?”

“I’m going to take care of some business.” And off he lumbers.

“He could at least have gone down-wind,” grumbles Rochefort.

“He didn’t mean that either,” says d’Artagnan, voice laced with quiet amusement. The others smirk silently.

“Then what…?”

“He’s a very _practical_ man, our Porthos,” remarks Aramis, sliding further back on the saddle that will be serving him as a pillow, hat tilting forward. “No coyness about him. Nor any false modesty,” he murmurs, smile broadening in his voice.

“Good _God!_ ” exclaims Rochefort, and turns fussily from the fire again.

D’Artagnan smiles gently, that one-sided smile, shaking his head as his fingers, gripping the whetstone, stroke his shining blade.

Athos feels that familiar, throbbing heat kick up inside him again, its lopsided rhythm convulsing in his chest.

Damn.

He slides back, reaching for his blanket, pulling it loosely around him, lying with his head towards Aramis, who is murmuring some kind of nonsense tune in a high, sleepy voice, and his feet towards d’Artagnan. His eyes half-open, he can see the rhythmic movement, imagine the bunch and flex of the young man’s bicep and forearm, feels the silk of the inner arm, the brush of tiny hairs beneath his fingertips, feels… his hand strays to his crotch as it has so often the past two days - never, you know, seriously, just… comforting.

His hand cups and strokes, firm and even, matching the rhythm that the other man has set up. Immediate heat rushes in, hardening him. He feels his breath gather at the top of his throat, aching to be a moan, longing to be heard. _Just stop. Just one more._

_Just one._

And d’Artagnan stops, rolls his shoulders, stretches, and puts the blade away.

 _Oh, come_ on!

He crumples upwards to his feet, a little unsteady, blanket clutched to his hip by one corner. D’Artagnan looks up, mildly quizzical.

“I’m just,” he says, a little thickly, a little quickly, “going to go for a walk.”

“All right,” says d’Artagnan.

He turns away from the fire, drops the blanket, picks up his sword, chooses the opposite direction to Porthos, and heads into the woods.


	4. Asking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short night-time stroll in the woods. That ought to sort everything out.

Athos’s feet stumble and catch in briars and vines. He is night-blind after the fire, and shortly has no choice but to stop, catch his breath, close his eyes, and let his vision adapt.

When he opens them, he sees, ahead, faint moonlight glimmering in a loose clearing, dominated by a large tree. For lack of anything better, he aims his juddering frame towards it, breathing a little deeper with each step.

By the time he gets there, he’s very nearly recovered.

Nearly.

He realises that he feels ill - hot and cold like he was running a fever, almost…  _ nauseous  _ with desire.

Huffing, he drops his sword to the ground, leans forward, right fist against the tree trunk, then bows his head, pressing it against the bark, moving it gently back and forth, enjoying the simple sensation of its texture against him.

As if this gesture of surrender was all that his body had been waiting for, his left hand drifts to his waist, and moulds itself to him. He is almost instantly hard again, heat coursing from the pit of himself, as his hand follows the remembered rhythm from the campfire gleam of metal and whetstone in a pair of broad, warm, strong, brown hands.

A groan escapes his clenched teeth. His weight has shifted so that now his right forearm braces him against the trunk, his face almost caressing its surface, his left hand in urgent service of his needs. And now that first dam of silence has burst, he can moan, gasp, whimper with each stroke, each press, each, oh, each. Oh, each, ah. Oh.

“Oh, God!”

He is practically kissing this fucking tree, his left hand hauling at him until that voice pipes up:  _ you can’t do this. _

_ Oh, I’m bloody doing this all right. _

_ No, you can’t spend yourself in your breeches. _

_ Oh. Hell. Oh, yes. _

He holds himself back, bowed forward, right hand splayed against the trunk, breathing hard, feeling his heart tumble in his chest like he’s just run a mile. He smiles. He can feel the creak of it across stiff cheeks, starts a soft  _ hah, ah _ of gasping laughter, cradled momentarily in his own foolishness, his own forgiveness.

And his left hand unhitches his belt, starts to work at the points of his breeches. He’s wondering whether he needs to take anything else off, or if dropping his breeches will be enough and then he’s fisting his clothing closed, turning wildly, eyes wide.

A crackle. Something heavy moving in the undergrowth. He puts his back to the tree trunk, hand on the hilt of his dagger. And another crackle, followed by a soft curse.

He feels his face harden. “Come out,” he says, voice harsh. “Let me see you.”

A figure emerges from the darkness of the wood, and his heart stammers, his breath clogging in his throat.

He swallows, clears his throat, jaw clenched.

_ No. _

_ Yes. _

_ Ah, hell. _

_ I know. _

He’s moving towards him, unhurried, sword and dagger sheathed at his sides, light-footed, catching ever more of the dim glimmer of starlight and moonlight.

“What.” He takes another breath, starts again. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you.”

“You…” swallow. “You, why?” He can feel blood mantling in his face, hopes the quality of the light hides it, knows he must sound strange.

The other shrugs. “Just checking you’re all right.”

“I’m…”

“Are you?”

He’s closer.

“I.”

“Athos?”

“I. I’m fine.”

D’Artagnan puts his hands on his hips, smiles gently, then twists his face a little to indicate thought. “I see. Well,  _ I  _ think you might need some help.”

“I. Help?”

“Yes.” He steps a little closer. He is cast in shifting shades of grey, silver picking out nose, chin, hands, chest, brow, mouth.

Athos bites back a tiny moan, but, in that moment, d’Artagnan tilts his head lightly as though he’s heard. His smile shifts, shimmering deeper, his eyes locked with Athos’s. Another step forward.

Athos can feel the hastily-shored wall of his resolve start to crack, senses it in minute movements of his face, his breath coming ragged, his hammering heart sending heat to his throat, his face, his.

Surely d’Artagnan, almost close enough to touch, can feel that heat, the shameful wash of it against his own skin.

And then the other man shifts somehow, a little, lifting one leg to raise it onto an exposed root, pausing there, and Athos’s gaze slips from his face, grazes the moonlight’s caress on his leather-wrapped thigh, and - God save him, his eyes slip higher across silvered shadows, the rise and fall of flesh, to.

To.

Oh God.

No.

_ Yes. _

To the very definite and unmistakable bulge in d’Artagnan’s own breeches.

He reaches back and digs his fingers into the bark of the tree, pushing back into it as hard as he can, rubs the texture of the trunk into the back of his head, teeth clenched.

D’Artagnan’s expression shifts, and much of the teasing and determination going, replaced by a burgeoning concern. “Oh,” he murmurs. He reaches across himself and, under Athos’s bulging, frantic stare, he unbuckles his sword belt and lets it drop to the ground. He puts his hands on his hips again, looks a little exasperated.

“For God’s sake, Athos, will you let me help you?”

The tiniest sound escapes the back of Athos’s throat. It sounds a little like “Hnn.” D’Artagnan is so close now he can feel the man’s breath on his face, his scorching throat, his aching chest.

He is clinging to the tree for dear life, trying to draw strength from it, to push away. To step. To say. To turn.

No.

No.

I can’t.

I.

He prises first one, then the other hand off the tree, reaches flat palms out to repel this, this, but when they reach D’Artagnan’s chest the sound that’s wrested from between his teeth as his fingers bunch in the soft leather of his tormentor is

“Yes! Oh  _ God yes! _ ”

And he’s pulling, and D’Artagnan is pushing forward, swimming that last inch of aching distance into him. Into his embrace.


	5. Taking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things become abruptly explicit.

The hot, impossible weight of d’Artagnan’s body is pressing him into the tree trunk at his back. Eyes screwed shut, panting, he leaves his right fist crushed between them, clenched into the fabric of the man’s shirt, and reaches with his left arm to gather them closer. D’Artagnan moans, hot and damp against his left ear, stubble catching in beard and now he knows.

Now he knows what to do.

He has to hear that sound again at any cost, to drink it, eat it, breathe it. He wrenches his right arm free, reaches round to cup d’Artagnan’s arse, pull him closer, feel his pelvis rock against him. He is rewarded with another moan, a heavy rush of breath against his face, and soft, woodsmoke-fragrant hair is brushing across his eye, his cheek.

D’Artagnan’s arms are braced against the tree, but now he takes his left hand, cradles the back of Athos’s head, pulls back so they are nose-to-nose, breathing each other’s air, and he can feel, oh dear God, the shape of those lips against his in that narrowest of charged spaces that hangs between them.

“I need to know,” breathes d’Artagnan.

“Wh-” he swallows, whispers: “What?”

“Do you want this?”

“Oh God…”

“Tell me.”

“Yes. Yes, I want this.” He can feel d’Artagnan’s pulse, the shape of his breath against every part of him.

“What do you want?”

“I.” Oh God in Heaven. “You. I want… want you. You.”

“Ah.” He can feel him smile. Oh, please.

“Please.”

“What?”

“I want…”

“Yes?”

“I. Oh, sod it!” And he surges forward, captures d’Artagnan’s mouth with his.

After that first bruising impact, it is surprisingly gentle, and Athos has time to start registering all the ways in which kissing a man is different from kissing a woman, but at the first hint of d’Artagnan’s tongue slipping between his lips he forgets all this and has seized the back of the young Musketeer’s head as his is seized, working their lips and tongues together frantically, d’Artagnan making the most delicious, keening sounds through his nose. He answers with a ragged series of barking grunts, notices, almost absently, that his pelvis is rocking against the other man’s, feels the wonderful, impossible shape of his

_ Say it _

his cock

_ Oh, God _

against his own, hard and.

_ Oh  _ God!

D’Artagnan is gasping, pulling away a little into something like a chuckle. He eyes his comrade almost wryly, leans in to brush a gentle kiss against his lips, pulls back again as if he just can’t get enough of the sight of Athos, Athos panting and trembling and more aroused than he’s ever been in his entire life.

Athos closes his eyes, leans his head back against the tree, feels a weight-spilling grin spread across him, the shared throb of their crotches, still bound together. He lets a woozy chuckle ebb out of him, hears it echoed from the other’s throat.

Then he feels that beautiful weight lift off him, pulling a kind of mourning whimper from him which lengthens into a soft, panting moan as it’s replaced by gentle fingers brushing at him.

Woodsmoke scent eddies around him. “You see,” murmurs d’Artagnan, close to his ear again, “you still need some help, I think.” He pauses, presses a little. “Will you let me?”

Athos, his eyes still closed, lets out an inarticulate sound while arching into d’Artagnan’s palm.

“We’ll take that as a yes,” comes the amused reply.

He keeps his eyes closed, feeling like a coward, feeling like a king. He feels air across him as his breeches are gently unlaced and fall away. A hand on him. Enclosing, caressing, measuring his responses, gentle and firm, finding that whetstone rhythm. He reaches blindly for the other, tugging a chuckle then a gasp from d’Artagnan as he thrusts his hand inside the points of his breeches, ripping at them in his desire to hold.

Oh.

Oh God.

D’Artagnan lets out a little _nnf_ of surprise and lust as Athos encircles him, still within his breeches, his own hand still busy and rhythmic against Athos’s cock.

Athos feels himself swell impossibly, unbelievably sensitive from end to end, cataloging the ways in which a man’s hand, a swordsman’s hand on his prick is different. Is.  _ Oh _ .

“I-” he pants. “I’m…  _ gently _ …”

“Oh,” says d’Artagnan, sounding contrite. “Sorry, my hands  _ are _ quite rough, I suppose.”

_ Quite honestly _ , thought Athos, _that had actually been part of the joy_.

“I should try to find something softer.”

“Er,” manages Athos, “all right…?”

D’Artagnan’s crotch pulls gently but inexorably away from his hand. He can’t resist a gasp-tugging squeeze as the heat departs. The next moment he’s the one gasping as some extraordinarily silken warmth brushes first one then the other side of his shaft, then the head.

“What…?” he says, opening his eyes and looking down…

Into d’Artagnan’s eyes, his lips starting to stretch around

Dear Mother in Heaven

The head of his cock.


	6. Taking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hmm.

Taking the widening eyes above him as consent, and not breaking gaze until the very last moment, d’Artagnan starts to push himself towards Athos, engulfing him with aching slowness, using his tongue for as long as possible, to moisten his cock’s passage in a series of flickering strokes, ease its journey inward.

The shock of this initially makes Athos’s cock soften briefly, then, a beat later, he is almost painfully hard, that exquisite sensitivity returning, feeling it crawl across his whole body until every stretched, swollen atom of his flesh is crackling.

Now d’Artagnan pulls back, the night breeze caressing the wetness left behind. He shudders, and d’Artagnan returns, a little faster this time. Now out, now back in, a little quicker with each stroke, a little harder.

A little deeper.

D’Artagnan’s gaze is now locked on Athos’s torso, casting the occasional look upwards, his hands busy on his balls and belly, the top of his thighs, until everywhere he touches is almost painfully alive to sensation.

His thoughts charge wildly around - attention flickering from moon-cast leaves to distant dark, to the top of d’Artagnan’s head, to the shuffling grip of his boots on the roots and leafdust beneath him, to d’Artagnan’s right hand, cupping and caressing his balls, to the renewed grip of his fingers on the trunk behind him, to the gentle tug of d’Artagnan’s left hand on his buttock, urging him further in.

He daren’t move. He is gripping the tree in a combined effort of keeping him upright and not seizing the man’s head to thrust deeper inside him.

And, dear God in Heaven, he wants to.

He realises abruptly that he isn’t going to last very long. Frankly, it’s a miracle that he hasn’t spent himself a dozen times over by now.

“I,” he clears his throat, “I can’t last much longer.”

D’Artagnan makes a  _ hunh  _ noise he feels vibrating against his flesh, tugging a whimper from him.

“No,” he says, struggling to pull back a little, “you don’t understand.”

D’Artagnan sits back, looks up at him, a mixture of lust, wry humour and fond exasperation on his face. His lips look bruised in the moonlight. Athos’s heart kicks against his chest and he feels some kind of strength leave him.

“No,” the young man responds, serious and sly, “ _ you _ don’t understand. I  _ want  _ you to.”

“Huh?”

“I want to bring you,” he murmurs, husky in the dark, “I want to feel you come across my tongue.” Athos whimpers. “And, quite frankly, my dear friend, I want you to stop holding back. I want you,” he went on, firmly, “to  _ fuck my mouth _ .” Athos moans. “Can you do that?”

“Oh, God.”

“Good.” He bends back to business.

Soon Athos is rocking into d’Artagnan’s mouth, a series of guttural assents bursting from him with each thrust. Despite what the young man has said, he still can’t bring himself to seize his head and ram his way in.

Afterwards he will explain to himself that there’s still enough of a gentleman in him to inform his behaviour.

His back is braced against the tree, left hand fisted into his own curls, right flat against his belly, caressing himself as he pushes and pushes and

That wordless moment - the same and unique every time, the burst he will later describe to himself as the world catching light from the long-buried spark igniting in the deep of him, an explosion that knocks his legs out from under him, dimly aware of d’Artagnan’s hands catching him, gentling him to the ground, then his warmth withdrawing and Athos reaching out, wordless, praying for his arms around him, those gentle hands.

“There,” croons the other. “I’m there. There you are. Come on.”

The world swims, lightless and finally silent beneath him as he succumbs to weightlessness for an endless minute.

He returns to himself on his side at the foot of the tree, someone’s fingers playing with the soft curls at his temple.

“Hmm?” he says, with a long, slanted smile.

“Hmm,” agrees the voice above him.

“Hmm!” he realises and makes to sit up.

“Hey! Hey, gentle now.”

He starts to giggle, helplessly, slumps against the trunk. Good old tree.

The other joins in. “What’s funny, then, eh?”

He grins. “Everything. Me? Yeah, me.”

“Heh.”

He opens his eyes, gives a happy sigh. “Y’r noa drim?”

“Hmm?”

He shakes his head, clears his throat, tries again. “You’re not a dream,” he manages.

D’Artagnan nods, mock-grave, twinkling. “Not a dream.”

“Hmm,” he says, happily, leaning back. “Wonderful.”

After a moment he stretches, opens his eyes again, reaches forward to the man squatting patiently in front of him.

“Hmm?” says d’Artagnan.

“Hmmkiss me,” demands Athos.

“Oh, but…”

“Kiss.” He thumps his chest. “Me.”

D’Artagnan flicks his eyebrows and leans in, prepared for gentleness, has his breath taken away as Athos plunges into a deep, heart-tripping kiss, hands cupping the other’s face, drinking in the taste of himself on the other’s tongue.

D’Artagnan pulls back. “Woah.”

“Yeah.” He puts his hands on d’Artagnan’s shoulders, pulls himself clumsily to a kneeling position, which the other finds himself hastily mirroring as Athos pulls him towards him with greedy hands.

Soon they’re kissing again, occasionally surfacing with a gasp, Athos feeling d’Artagnan’s body heating between his squeezing hands. He sends his right down to d’Artagnan’s crotch, then slips his left to fist the man’s silken hair, pulling his head back and to the side.

He is instantly rewarded with an unbridled moan and a rush of heat and further hardness in his kneading hand.

_ Thought so. _

“Stand up,” he orders, sitting back, “and come here.”

Bemused and lust-drunk, d’Artagnan stumbles upwards, catching his balance against the tree, arms outstretched, as Athos reaches out and rips his points open, peels his breeches down roughly, and grips him two-handed - one under his balls, the other seizing his shaft.

“Oh God,” murmurs d’Artagnan, gazing down, looking awed and aroused beyond anything Athos has seen on another’s face before.

He grins up at him.

“My turn,” he says.


	7. Giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think we all know what's coming next...

He could feel himself shaking - a combination of spent energy, soul-rattling lust, and terror that he would somehow fuck this up.

_ I’m going to fuck this up. _

_ You’re  _ not _ going to fuck this up. _

_ How do I… _

_ Just do what you want to do. What you  _ need _ to do. _

He tugged the young man closer, the musky scent of him diving deep inside his chest and and loosening his fears. He saw the clear droplet oozing from the tip of the other’s cock and instinctively licked it clear, hearing d’Artagnan moan. He looked up to see the other, braced above him, biting his lip, eyes shuttering.

He opened his mouth wide and engulfed him.

He was aware, at some level, of trying to remember what d’Artagnan had done for him; what had made it so special, but thoughts of careful, patient teasing kept being driven away by his hunger to hear the man groan, for him to give up his control entirely to Athos’s need.

He kept up an intense pressure with his mouth, grinding the Gascon’s cock against the roof of his mouth, lashing him with his tongue.

Instead of gentle, teasing strokes, he all-but clawed at the other’s flesh, gripping him with bruising intensity while the man rocked helplessly, legs straining. He dug his fingernails into his buttocks and thighs, scraped trails of sensation down his flinching, flexing belly, and still d’Artagnan groaned and thrust, radiating an intense heat.

At one point he pulled his head back, gasping for air, continuing the brutal strokes with his spit-slickened hand while gazing at the Musketeer above him, watching hectic colour spill across his face and body.

“Be still,” he commanded. The other fought to obey, spasmodic jerks shaking him.

_ My God _ , he marvelled, breeches round his ankles, powdered leaves and moss and bark all over him, halfway to the Spanish border in the company of a man he despised, shaking in the grip of another man’s desire,  _ this is a wondrous thing. I will give thanks for this every day, for if you were to strike me down now, I swear could not ascend higher than I am in this moment. _

“So, d’Artagnan,” he said, alive to the very root of his being as he had not been since That Day, “if you want me to keep going,” he squeezed gently, lapping up the man’s groan, the bounding twitch under his palm, “you’re going to have to do something for me.”

“Anything,” came, snake-fast on a ragged gasp. He swallowed. “A-anything. Please.”

He smiled, wild and light. “First,” he said, “tell me what this feels like.” He bobbed down, sucking hard, lips and tongue gliding over the head of his cock, while his hand took one firm stroke. He came up for air, peered up. “Be precise.”

He shifted to a looser grip, let the head sit on his lower lip, his breath play gently over it.

“Oh,” said d’Artagnan, pulse shaking his voice. “Oh, it feels good. Um. It feels,” a deep breath, “like a… like a deep bath that’s just a touch too hot. You feel it, uh,  _ prickle,  _ but you want the heat so much you lower yourself in.”

“Mmmmh,” said Athos. “ _ Good _ answer. Let’s see…” He drew him into his mouth achingly slowly, using the middle of his tongue to press his cock upwards, massaging it with both tongue and hands, a carefully measured dose until d’Artagnan  _ just _ started to move, his pelvis tilting somewhere beyond his volition.

“Uh-uh,” said Athos, withdrawing, “not until I say so.”

“Yes. Sorry. Yes, Athos,” he muttered.

“Oh. Say that again.”

“Yes.”

“No,” he squeezed lightly. “My name. Say my  _ name _ .”

“A-Athos.”

“Mmh. A little louder.”

“Athos.”

“Louder.” 

“Athos!” 

“Again.” 

“Athos!  _ Athos!  _ Oh, God, Athos,  _ yes! _ ” as his hands and mouth began their work again.

“Yes!  _ Yes _ , Athos! Oh,  _ God _ , YES!”

Again, as he began to move, Athos withdrew. A whimper crept out of him, and Athos could hear him tightening his breath into the kind of shallow gasps a wounded man uses to stop himself from crying out. It sobered him a little.

_ Third time pays for all. _

“One last thing,” he said, low, rough, warm.

“Mm-hm?” said d’Artagnan, in a higher pitch than normal.

“What do you want?” A pause. “You have to tell me, in as much detail as you can bear, what you want.” He hears his own voice break a little over this.

“Oh, God.”

“Tell me,” and he put a coaxing kind of spin into his tone. A tone that said: I absolve you, I take full responsibility, just do my will and you will be free. “Tell me what you  _ want _ , d’Artagnan.”

“Y-you. Ah. I want to spend myself in you and have you, you in me. B-bring me. Bring me with your mouth, your cruel, your s-soft mouth, your lips, your tongue, your teeth if needs be. Bring me with your strong hands, your arms, your, your hips, your hmmbody. Bring me with your cock. With your, your… y-your, oh God,  _ please  _ don’t stop, sweet Mother of God, the heat, the wetness, the tight, ah, dear Jesu, oh please,  _ please _ , Athos, I want to come.”

Even though there could be no doubt in Athos’s mind that he held a man in his arms, frantically pumping in his mouth and fingers, the way he explained it to himself later was that his instinct had long been to seek a lover’s pleasure low between their legs. But, whatever the truth of it, while his right hand held d’Artagnan’s shaft, swollen now almost beyond his jaw’s capacity, directing it across his lips, stroking, and squeezing it, his left crept beneath his friend’s tightening balls to beckon more gasps with his fingertips. The angle of his thrusts shifted, and it took a moment for him to realise that d’Artagnan was trying blindly to bring those fingers’ pressure to bear on.

Oh.

And as he pressed gently, sweat-slickened and marvelling, d’Artagnan stiffened, thrust once more, hard and hot, his release jetting into Athos’s throat salt-sweet, as his whole body spasmed and fell, cut strings.

Athos caught him awkwardly, helped him down to the ground where he lay, curled in on himself, rocking a little, muttering sounds he couldn’t make out, a tumbling stream of sweet nonsense. Remembering his earlier ache to be held, to be close, Athos stayed, propped a little uncomfortably, arm across his friend’s shoulder.

He found himself regretting that they had not become completely naked after all; now instead he could have been skin-to-skin with him, reflecting heat, bathing in each others’ sweat.

_ And swiftly cold and completely covered in forest crap. _

_ Fine. Next time, in a bed maybe. _

_ Oh God. _

_ Next time? _

“Nextime,” said d’Artagnan thickly, “twould be goodto have bed.”

“Right…” he said absently.

“Kiss me?”

“Of course.”


	8. Departing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss farewell.

He leant over awkwardly, lost his balance, and landed on him. They laughed, and nuzzled, and kissed.

And kissed.

Athos pulled back, traced d’Artagnan’s full lower lip with his fingertip.

“I will never get enough of this mouth.”

“Oh?” he quirked an eyebrow. “That sounds like a challenge.”

He grinned. “Hah!” Then, sobering: “We should…”

“Get dressed and get back.”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

They brushed and shook themselves off as best they could, hauled up and laced their breeches, tried to brush those off, looked up at the same moment and burst out laughing.

“Here,” said d’Artagnan, reaching up to Athos’s hair, “let me.”

Athos felt his breath catching all over again as his friend’s gentle fingers plucked fragments of leaf and moss from his curls. All of a sudden he had no idea what to do with his hands, settled, finally, for letting them rest on d’Artagnan’s hips.

He felt peeled, tender. Young.

 _Oh, hell_.

D’Artagnan’s eyes finished roving over his hair and dropped to his own. “What?” he asked, softly, hands falling slowly down, dark eyes innocent.

Athos felt himself start to blush, gaped a couple of times, then reached up, slowly, let his fingers drift into d’Artagnan’s hair, and began to brush its still-silken length free of detritus. Intent on this procedure, he nearly didn’t notice the other’s breath deepen and catch in turn. He kept on grooming, then looked into his eyes at last.

“Oh,” breathed d’Artagnan.

“Yeah,” he murmured back.

The Gascon stirred, and Athos felt the other’s right hand land square in the middle of his chest, the fingers spreading. He looked down, returned the gesture, remembering in a burst of sensation laying his hands on this chest in his earlier desperation. They stayed like that for some time, braced, legs planted, an infinity of seeing themselves reflected, each in the other.

An owl’s hoot tugged them from contemplation.

“Come on,” said Athos, tongue sluggish, letting his hand drop.

“Y-yes,” said d’Artagnan. He cast around and picked up his sword belt, started to buckle it around his waist. As he cinched his own belt, Athos felt as though he was stepping back into himself, into… a different way of standing, of thinking, of feeling, strapped and upright, armoured.

And within that armour - something bright and ungovernable.

He caught d’Artagnan’s eye, bright in the dappled starlight. The younger man pointed to the ground behind him and he turned, then turned back, frowning.

D’Artagnan was still pointing. “Your sword?” he prompted.

“Oh. Yes,” he muttered, went to fetch it, incredulous at the despair he’d felt when throwing it to the ground… whenever that was.

They started to make their way back. “How…” he started, “how long have we been gone?”

D’Artagnan turned a barely-discernible face to him briefly and chuckled.

“Right…”

They made their way on in silence until they were nearly at the camp. He caught the other’s arm. “Wait.”

“What?”

“We’d best…”

“Go in separately. I know.” D’Artagnan’s voice was low, neutral.

“Right.”

“But first.”

“Yes?”

“Know that, for me, this wasn’t a mistake.”

“Oh God, no!” It came in a rush. “No, no.”

“Good. Now,” he said, turning into Athos’s arms, running his fingers up the back of his head and clutching his curls lightly, “where’s my farewell kiss?”

Deep, long, slow, lingering, murmuring into each other, into the dark, Athos’s hands light but firm at the small of his back. As d’Artagnan withdrew, Athos grazed his lower lip with his teeth, felt the other shudder, felt suddenly like he could run all night if he had to, to feel that again at the end of it all.

D’Artagnan ran his fingers slowly over his own mouth. “What was that for?” he asked.

“To see how it would feel,” replied Athos.

A pause, then together they said: “Felt good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the feedback so far - this has been my first ever bit of fanfic, and I've enjoyed the experience IMMENSELY. I already know where this is going next, so expect some more in the weeks to come. :)
> 
> Enormous love to AO3, and The Musketeers cast and writers (and fandom), who are keeping me awake at night...


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